Well, AFAIK noboy knows for sure why Finland is Finland - but certainly it's not just 'land'.
There's a couple of possible origins which both are deemed unlikely - it's either from 'Fen land' which means 'Marshlands' which in Finnish is 'Suomaa' and coincidentally Finland in Finnish is 'Suomi', which is deceivingly close, but no cigar at least for sure, say the linguists...plus Finland isn't particularly marshy albeit there's enough of those too. Although the Finnish version may have originated therefrom OR be a combo of Sami (lapp people) and something else.
Another example is an archaic form of 'Finn' or 'Feon' etc. which used to mean, fair, light (blonde) and perhaps first the people from 'round here would have been called 'blonde people', which seems to occur somewhere in the 11th century at least, and from there, 'land of fair people' i.e. Feonland > Finland. That could be a more plausible explanation.
But, it is a mystery. Most names round here are that way; known in some form ~a thousand back old and nobody has a clue as to what they may mean any more. Like my town is 'Kuopio' which isn't reminiscent of anything in any language. It can be thought to be a variation/compound shortening of 'a place where one dug something' but that hardly seems like a sensible explanation to anyone.
